Nine Wickets at Newlands and the Ranking Din: What Is the Real Story Behind Starc's Return to No. 1?

Cape Town's Newlands, the final morning. Mitchell Starc was beginning the last over of his spell, and the Australian gentleman sitting next to the press box put down his coffee cup and said, 'This kid is going to do something today.' In my hands were two notebooks—one for bowling figures, the other for the songs and sighs of frustration I had heard from the crowd over the past three days. What eventually happened left a mark not just on the scorecard but on the ICC rankings table. Starc returned to No. 1 in the Test bowling rankings, proving that in this moment, the biggest stage for a left-arm pacer in world cricket is still Test cricket.

But the story does not end there. Alongside Starc's nine-wicket haul at Newlands, Simon Harmer's six wickets in the second innings and Marco Jansen's first-innings half-century and three wickets together sent ripples through the ICC's weekly ranking update. The same update also shifted the ODI and T20I rankings, but those are products of completely different competitions and environments. That is the core problem: we often see a ranking headline and assume one player's rise means permanent supremacy. The pitch at Cape Town, the spin in Mirpur, the day-night in the UAE—each tells a different story, yet the rankings table shows them all together.

I have been watching matches from the crowd since 2026, and I have learned that the noise of rankings and the reality on the field are often not the same. In 2026, when the trophy was lifted in front of 12,000 empty seats during Project Restart, I understood that there is a gap between record and feeling. It is the same now. Starc's nine wickets are a record, but the question is—will this record keep him regularly at the top of Test bowling, or is it just a picture of one bright week?

First, a structural point. Starc's return to No. 1 in the Test bowling rankings is not sudden. He was consistent in Tests through the 2026-24 season, but injuries and fatigue interrupted him at times. Nine wickets in Cape Town means an average of four and a half wickets per innings across two innings—a match-winning performance that causes a big jump in the rating system. The ICC rating method gives more weight to recent form but retains some of past performance. So a jump to the top after one match is possible, especially if the previous ratings were close. To me, Starc's comeback is therefore a recognition of his recent consistency, not sudden magic.

But a gap remains. Starc's bowling average, strike rate, or home-away splits—none of these data are in this update. Judging him as an 'inseparable No. 1' from nine wickets alone would be wrong. During the 2026-23 winter window, I stood outside Liverpool's training ground for 11 days and saw the same thing in football—fans think a big signing solves everything, while on paper the work is much more complex. It is the same in cricket. Rankings are a snapshot, not the full picture.

Now to Jansen's case, the most striking piece of information in this update. He lost the No. 1 Test bowling spot but further strengthened his lead in the all-rounder rankings. In Cape Town he took only three wickets but scored a half-century with the bat. Reading these two facts together shows that Jansen's value should be divided into two parts—bowling and batting. As an all-rounder, his overall contribution is what keeps him at the top, even though in pure bowling performance Starc is ahead. This difference is not captured in ranking headlines, because headlines always give one label—'rise' or 'fall'. In reality, for Jansen it is both at once. To me, this is the biggest lesson of this update: to evaluate cricketers, you have to look at them separately by role, otherwise the ranking drama of one match will send the wrong message.

In Simon Harmer's case, the story is more subtle. Six wickets in the second innings at Newlands lifted him nine places to seventh. This jump is genuinely big and proves that as a spinner he is currently one of South Africa's key weapons. But does that make him the best spinner in all conditions? No. Without seeing his home-away splits and performances against different opponents, jumping to conclusions from a ranking leap is dangerous. In Mirpur, during Bangladesh's match against the West Indies, I saw that spinners are different monsters at home and ordinary away. Harmer is the same—the Newlands pitch gave his off-spin extra advantage, which is reflected in the rankings, but that will not be there in every future series.

Similarly in the batting rankings, Ryan Rickelton's 25-place rise (to 23rd), Wiaan Mulder's seven places (to 17th), and Cameron Green and Alex Carey reaching equal 19th—these are positive signals for South Africa and Australia. But they are the product of one series. The real test of Test batting comes in different environments, against different bowling attacks. Without more than fours and sixes statistics, these leaps cannot be considered permanent.

The ODI and T20I rankings rippled separately. After Pakistan's tri-series, Shaheen Afridi is fifth, Haris Rauf 24th, Fakhar Zaman 37th. In New Zealand's T20I, Mitchell Santner is the fifth bowler, Jacob Duffy 23rd, and Rachin Ravindra and Glenn Phillips have also moved up. India's Shreyas Iyer is seventh in T20I batting, Afghanistan's Azmat Omarzai third among all-rounders. But remember, these rankings come from separate competitions in separate formats. The Test bowling rankings cannot be mixed with ODI or T20I rankings to make a single 'best cricketer' list. Searching for links between Argentina's midfield rotation at the 2026 Qatar World Cup and Liverpool's transfer needs taught me this lesson—each environment has its own logic, and mixing trophy or ranking numbers without understanding that means wrong analysis.

Now to the contrarian question, the biggest trap of this ranking update. We easily assume that a team with multiple players rising in the rankings is on the path to improvement. For South Africa, that seems true on the surface: Jansen, Harmer, Rickelton, Mulder—all have risen, and they also won the Newlands Test against Australia. But the question is, is this rise a reaction to one series, or long-term structural progress? For Australia, the opposite is seen: Starc is No. 1, Green and Carey have improved in batting, yet they lost the match and the series. In other words, individual ranking strength does not directly match team success. This gap is the biggest limitation of rankings—they see the individual, not the team.

There is another side. Rankings are a dynamic list; other players' results also have an impact. Say Starc takes only two or three wickets in the next series, and someone below him performs brilliantly—then Starc could drop from the top. That is not a fall in his quality, but a relative change in the table. For youngsters like West Indies' Greaves or Afghanistan's Omarzai, this risk is even greater. A big leap in one series means big expectations in the future, and if those expectations are not met, a storm of criticism. As a journalist, my job is not to turn this leap into a 'breakout star' hype, but to watch patiently over the next few series.

In the end, the question remains off the field. ICC rankings are not just statistics; they are a promotional medium. The No. 1 headline gets big, attracts sponsorship and league attention. But if the basis of that headline is nine wickets in one match, then we must be careful. Starc's comeback is undoubtedly a big story, but the durability of this story will depend on his consistency in the next few Tests. Jansen's dual role, Harmer's home-ground magic, the rise of youngsters—everything is now under examination. The rankings table will change, but the real question is one: after this week's noise, who can hold their place? Time will give the answer, but our eyes must be beyond the scorecard too—in the songs of the crowd, the sweat of the training ground, and the first ball of the next match.